Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Witch King by Martha Wells

27 reviews

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I liked the general plot and the characters (Martha Wells makes such compelling characters), but the worldbuilding is a lot to try and memorise as you read. I feel like if I reread this and made graphs and diagrams as I went, I'd enjoy it more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping, Child abuse, Genocide, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

Minor: Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and Self harm

msawyer77's review

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Colonisation, Death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, and Violence

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

Plot: 4★
Prose: 4★
Pace: 3.75★
Concept/Execution: 4★/5★
Characters: 4.5★
Worldbuilding: 4★
Ending: 4.25★

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, War, Blood, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Self harm

Moderate: Cursing, Physical abuse, Torture, Colonisation, Grief, Kidnapping, Confinement, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Abandonment, Animal death, and Vomit

silea's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Murder, Child death, Slavery, Genocide, Kidnapping, Colonisation, and Self harm

chris_reads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, and Murder

Minor: Self harm, Slavery, and Trafficking

emzhay's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Definitely enjoyed this book, but I felt quite detached from it all. I like dual timeline stories, but here couldn’t quite connect with the characters. They had likeable personalities, but I never felt like I got to know them. We saw the beginning and “beginning of the end” of their storylines. There’s  a good bit of character from KaiEnna since the book is told from his perspective, but I still felt detached from his journey as a reader. 

The writing itself is lovely and atmospheric. I listened to the audiobook and the sentences flowed together nicely. I liked the world and world building, but sometimes the infodumps got to be a bit too long and some of the politics got lost within it all. I’m or sure this is standalone, but I wouldn’t mind reading more from these worlds and about these characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Slavery, Colonisation, and Violence

Moderate: Genocide

laurareads87's review

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The Witch King is a stand-alone fantasy novel set in two timelines, both following Kaiisteron, a demon.  In the earliest timeline, here positioned as a backstory, the novel follows Kai's emergence into the mortal realm into his first human body, his meeting most of the supporting characters, and his participation in an uprising. The later timeline begins with Kai awaking from imprisonment and needing to figure out who betrayed him and to what end.  Both timelines are, effectively, adventure stories, complete with magic artefacts, dangerous terrains, outmaneuvering enemies, and the need to keep complicated, messy coalitions and allegiances together.

This novel does a lot of things that I love: multiple timelines used effectively, political intrigue that isn't predictable, wonderful relationship dynamics between characters.  It is worth noting that this is not entry-level fantasy - Wells throws the reader into the world with a list of characters and not much else to go on, and the reader must navigate a ton of new terminology (for peoples, organizations, forms of magic, etc.) without any real guidance.  The benefit of this is that there is zero 'info-dumping' here.  The drawback, I think, is that it can feel a bit hard to get into at the beginning.  It's worth it: when it comes together, it's wonderful.  

While not the focus of the book, there are ways that gender is addressed that are worth paying attention to -- demons (at least all the ones we meet throughout the book) seem to have fixed gender identities (Kaiisteron is unambiguously 'he' throughout) but may of course occupy any and all kinds of bodies, and the different cultures in this fantasy world do (or don't) distinguish gender in different ways (ex. sometimes dress is a distinguishing factor, sometimes it isn't).

This novel is, as I understand it, written as a standalone and it absolutely works as one: it is self-contained.  I will say, though, that given the depth of this world-building, I'd love to see more works by Wells set in this series, whether with this same cast of characters or otherwise. 

Content warnings: violence, murder, death, injury detail, war, colonization, forcible confinement, blood, torture

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Violence, War, Murder, Blood, and Torture

blacksphinx's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is my second Martha Wells book and I can't help but notice their endings both do the same thing - 

the linchpin of the plot occurs off screen, where no present characters see it, and the audience is told about it afterward

- and if this continues to be a pattern in her writing I don't know how many more books of hers I'm going to wind up reading. 

However... This one is so full of heart with such a unique world that I'm wrestling with the rating. I think it's a little too much, with all its rich cultures and three different magic systems (and all the various Fantasy Words used to describe them), but I can't fault her for having a big and varied world? The danmei influence upon this work is powerful and welcomed. But the actual plot is so thin. "Nothing really happened, but it was beautiful and made me feel a spark of hope" is such a hard thing to assign a number between 1 and 5 to. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Torture, War, Xenophobia, Violence, Death, Child death, Murder, Confinement, Body horror, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Slavery, Grief, Genocide, Racism, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Alcohol

marsh_mall0w's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Religious bigotry, Body horror, Slavery, Xenophobia, Murder, War, Confinement, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Abandonment, and Genocide

hailstorm3812's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I was dubious about this at first since it's a big tonal leap from Murderbot and a lot of worldbuilding to get into, but I am glad I stuck it out because I really ended up liking it. I ended up really attached to the characters and wouldn't mind returning to this world. There is really something to the concept of a group of immortals being glued together by a human who's gone now, which isn't the main plot but rests just below the surface the entire time. It got to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Confinement

Moderate: Gore, Death, Colonisation, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, War, Murder, and Grief